Happy Halloween!
by Chariiyaka
Summary: The marauders decide to celebrate Halloween in true marauder style. Using any means necessary this Halloween will be one people are unlikely to forget in a hurry!


**Happy Halloween**

The slowly burning fire was the only source of light in the recently decorated Gryffindor common room. It cast eerie shadows on the numerous objects covering the room. No one would have any doubt of what time of year it was once they had entered the Gryffindor common room. Carved pumpkins covered every available surface each one unique. Banners, streamers and fake cobwebs covered the walls and there was Candy everywhere. Oh boy was there Candy! Creepy looking skeletons hung down from the ceiling charmed to grab unsuspecting students form behind. This wasn't the only trick in store for the Gryffindor students as among all the innocent looking decorations were the more sinister yet highly entertaining jokes, including green slime charmed to drop on anyone and everyone who walked through the portrait hole.

The marauders had got up exceptionally early this year to make sure the Halloween celebrations got off with a Bang! This year they were going to celebrate in good old fashioned pranking style and not even the members of their own house were safe from their plots. Of course they would only play moderately amusing, non fatal pranks on their fellow Gryffindors as most of their time, energy and resources would be used to make sure this Halloween was one the school would not be forgetting anytime soon, especially the Slytherin students. Oh and maybe the staff as well!

Halloween was on a Friday this year which meant they still had classes to go to. However the prospect of classes didn't seem as torturous as normal. Classes meant all the students were all together in one place making things just so much easier.

"I reckon we have a massive finale during the Halloween Feast!" suggested Sirius. All four of the marauders were sitting around the fire. Having decorated the common room they were now discussing the 'celebrations'. It was about five in the morning, they had spent hours decorating and discussing, now all that was left to decide was how they were going to end the day. The other students would be getting up soon so they didn't have long.

"Padfoot, I like the way you think," commented James. The majority of the pranks had been either James' or Sirius' ideas with Remus contributing with the planning and peter, well he just sat there and agreed with everything.

"It'll have to affect the whole school. During the day we'll be focused on the slytherins and staff and any other unlucky person so the other houses will have let their guard down by the end of the day! They won't be expecting it! Any ideas?" James asked his friends or more accurately his partners in crime.

All that was heard throughout the common room was the crackling of the slowly dying fire as the four Gryffindors racked their brains for a spectacular finale.

"I got it!" Sirius was the first one to break the silence. "What we do is we spike the food so that when people eat it really freaky things could happen to them-"

"Yeah and for each house the affect will be different. We could turn the slytherins into pumpkins and,"

"Gryffindors into something hairy sort of like a werewolf look alike, no offence moony!"

"None taken," Remus quickly cut into Sirius James' plotting. The two friends were finishing each others sentences and cutting into each others ideas which got wilder by the minute.

"How exactly are you going to spike all the food so everyone is affected?" Remus asked, injecting a little common sense into his friends thoughts.

Sirius and James just looked at each other then back at Remus and said in unison, "House elves," as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Remus just rolled his eyes and stood up stretching his arms high above his head. He'd leave them to their plotting he needed to get ready. Peter scurried off after Remus up to the dorms and Sirius and James decided to pay the Hogwarts House Elves a visit.

The Halloween jokes and pranks quickly turned into a full out war between the houses. Well mainly it was the Slytherins and Gryffindors, the other houses kept out their way. The staff had also given up trying to punish those responsible for the sometimes downright vicious jokes. Loosing house points and detentions was completely ineffective.

Everyone was constantly trying to out do everyone else and see who could scare the others the most. It was Halloween after all, the aim seemed to be who could create the scariest prank. So far they were just funny though throughout the day there had been a few first years seen running down corridors, screaming.

James and Sirius were still full out laughing as they climbed the stairs from the dungeons. That had been the best potions lesson ever. Even Remus was chuckling as he followed his friends. Potions had been the last lesson of the day so they had planned something, sticky, for that particular lesson. What made it even better was that they had that class with the slytherins. This prank involved an exploding cauldron, green slime, glitter and five very sticky yet very sparkly slytherins. The potions professor hadn't even batted an eye lid when five students suddenly became very sparkly. No punishments were given and the slytherins were left to find a way to vanish the slime on their own. A simple vanishing spell wouldn't work of course.

Now it was off to the lavishly decorated Great Hall though Sirius swore their decorations up in the common room were much better and to the biggest prank of the day, not that anyone besides the four marauders were aware of that.

With five little words from the Headmaster food miraculously appeared on the waiting plates in front of hungry students. Everyone immediately dug into the Halloween themed food, everyone except the marauders. No one, not even the Gryffindors noticed them not eating, everyone was to busy eating and chatting, it was strange how everyone seemed to be getting along, no one was on high alert waiting for a prank to happen. It was as if being in the Great Hall under the eyes of every member of staff nullified the competition.

They didn't have to wait long, all five tables went up in smoke as the potions Sirius and James had convinced the house elves to put in the food, took effect.

Once the smoke faded away the screaming and shrieking started up. The staff would have attempted to control the situation but they themselves were a bit preoccupied with their appearances. The older students were a little more composed compared to the younger students who were making most of the noise, screaming and crying.

The Gryffindors had all grown a set of ears and a tail, whiskers and were looking suspiciously feline like. Only it wasn't in the cute kitty way. The had sharp teeth, sharp claws and crazy looking eyes .

The slytherins were looking very orange and well very round. It was an odd sight, they resembled bright orange beach balls with arms sticking out, and legs not quite reaching the floor, with the same expression of horror copied onto all their faces.

The Ravenclaws looked like massive hairy bats, ten times the size of a normal bat with beady eyes, long leathery wings and sharp, pointy teeth.

The Hufflepuffs had extremely pale papery skin, red eyes and very, Very sharp fangs. The placid hufflepuffs had been turned into Bloodthirsty vampires.

The students alone had the marauders in hysterics, Sirius had to clutch onto James to stay sitting upright he was laughing that hard. There was no doubt among anyone who was responsible and as that dawned on the students the expressions of terror turned to a number of emotions. The slytherins glared with outright animosity towards the Gryffindor table only the effect was marred slightly by the fact they all resembled pumpkins. The rest of the students along with the staff just looked exasperated.

The headmaster stood up and held up his hand, an obvious gesture for silence. Unfortunately this had the opposite effect as the hand promptly fell off and landed on the table with a clatter. That did it again, the four marauders who had been calming down fell about laughing once again.

The staff had been the most difficult but eventually they had decided on something. It was James's idea to turn them into zombies. Their skin was grey and falling off in places, their hair matted with blood. Their clothes were artfully ripped and shredded and their eyes were wide, white and bulging.

Quite a few of the staff and students looked a little queasy but the falling off of limbs was just part of the effect, it wasn't real. Dumbledore looked amused as he reattached his hand.

Sirius now had one arm round James and the other wrapped around Remus to keep himself upright. Peter was sitting opposite the three. They had all calmed down enough to be capable of more than laughter, so with big smiles on their faces and tears of laughter in their eyes all four of them stood up and bowed.

"HAPPY HALLOWEEN!"

A/N - Hey everyone! This was just something I wrote for a halloween competition over on WP and thought I'd post it here as well since I haven't updated anything in a while! I feel less guilty! I reccomend you check WP out - www . Wizardportus . co . nr - Its a wonderful, amazingly fun forum based Harry potter site. With everything from games, competitonsand roleplaying and numerous ways to earn house points! If you join make sure you mention my name (Camilla Carlson) in the sorting quizz!

Chariiyaka XXxx


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